


you probably think this song is about you

by Rainne



Series: Thank-You Fics [10]
Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Asexual Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Darcy Lewis-centric, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-15
Updated: 2015-12-15
Packaged: 2018-05-06 21:14:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5430971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rainne/pseuds/Rainne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve Rogers is asexual and homoromantic; he's not interested in Darcy Lewis.</p><p>Which is for the best, because Darcy isn't interested in him, either.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you probably think this song is about you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Beatrice_Otter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beatrice_Otter/gifts).



> This fic is part of my Thank-You Fics, so called because they have been written as thank-you gifts to people who have donated to my mother's cancer fund, which is helping to pay for my mother's chemotherapy treatments and upcoming surgery.
> 
> If you would like to know more about my writing and my gift fics and how to get a Thank-You Fic of your own, please visit [this Tumblr post](http://rainnecassidy.tumblr.com/post/118466323344/please-help). Thanks.

"Dude. Don't look now, but there's a level-ten hottie on your eight that's checking you out something fierce."

Steve raises an eyebrow at Sam, taking a second to decode that sentence, and then he very casually shifts, turning to lean against the nearby wall and scan the crowd of people in Tony Stark's New York penthouse.  Sure enough, there's a girl he vaguely recognizes and she's staring hard in his direction.  She's Dr. Foster's assistant, and he can't remember her name, just that it was unusual and started with a D - Darby? Danny?  something like that.  She's gorgeous, even by his standards: curvy, with long dark hair and big gray eyes, ivory skin and lush, dark red lips, and she's wearing an amazing burgundy dress that shows her form off perfectly. 

He's not interested.

There's a thing that most people don't know about Steve Rogers, a thing he only recently learned about himself. He stumbled across it on the internet one day, and he was intrigued by the concept, and he read more about it, and the more he read, the more he realized that this was him, that this word, a word he never even thought could be applied to human beings, _explained_ him.  He'd texted it to Sam, just as an experiment, to see what kind of response he'd get.

 _Okay,_ Sam had responded.  And then, a moment later, _Oh, are you just finding this out? Do you need to talk or are congratulations in order? It's hard to tell over text._

And that was how Steve Rogers came out, both to himself and to his new best friend, as asexual. 

Which is why he isn't really sure, now, why Sam is bothering to point out the girl who's throwing meaningful looks in his direction.  He looks back at Sam and raises the other eyebrow. "And?"

Sam shrugs. "I'm just saying. I mean, I know you're ace, but you're not aro."

"Maybe not," Steve replies, "but I know what that look means on a girl's face. She's probably not interested in the romantic part; that face has sex written all over it. Probably she just wants to be able to brag to her friends on Facebook that she banged Captain America."

"The modern world just disappoints you more and more every day, doesn't it?" Sam asks cheerfully, downing his drink.

"I didn't fight Nazis for this," Steve replies mournfully.  He sighs into his own scotch and soda. 

"Okay, I am declaring a moratorium on depressing jokes tonight," Sam says. "You're not feeling this party. Wanna get out of here, go someplace else?"

Steve looks around the room slowly and then sighs. "Yeah, I kinda do," he admits.

"C'mon, then," Sam says, clapping him on the shoulder.  "Let's go get something to eat and see what's happening elsewhere in the city. I'm sure there's some kind of trouble we could get into."

Steve pulls out his phone as they make their way toward the door and starts scanning through alerts on an app.  "Oh, that coffee shop you like has an open mic night tonight," he offers. "We could see if that barista you like is working."

Sam laughs. "Now you're gonna play wingman?"

"Hey, I'll have you know, I'm a damn good wingman."  They slip out into the hallway, leaving the noise of the party behind.  Neither of them spare a second thought for the girl in the burgundy dress, and so neither of them notice how her eyes follow them across the room and out the door, and how she sighs with disappointment once they're gone.

~*~

It's a couple of weeks before the two of them are back in Avengers Tower; they got a possible lead on a HYDRA base near Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and there was also word of a possible Bucky sighting in that general vicinity, so they went to check it out.  Natasha met them there, but the base had already been cleared out; all they found there was a cabinet full of Cold War-era files and the ruined vestiges of something Natasha identified as a cryo-tube.  "They kept him here for awhile," she'd mused, studying the smashed piece of tempered glass that had probably been the viewing window.  "I don't know when."

"Maybe these files will tell us something," Sam suggested, pulling open the first drawer.  "Do we want to take them with us, or go through them here?"

"Take them with us," Steve decided. "I want to blow this place sky high."

In the end, the building didn't _quite_ go sky high, but it was close; they left the place basically a smoking hole all the same, and brought the files back to New York to let JARVIS scan them and do the tedious work of searching through them for important information.

Now in the tower, taking a week or so to recover and dig into new leads, Steve is suddenly and uncomfortably reminded of Dr. Foster's assistant when he passes through the physics labs one day, looking for Banner.  From across the room, he spies Dr. Foster, doing something arcane with a piece of equipment.  Her assistant - Darcy, he now knows - is with her, and she's watching him as he crosses the labs.  She's busy working with Foster, though, so she doesn't approach him, and he's grateful for that.  He's out to Sam, and he's (mostly) comfortable with his identity in himself, but he's not sure he's ready to have that conversation with anyone else.  She waves, though, so he waves back, and he keeps moving.  A few days later, he's chasing Bucky again, this time in Utah not far from Dugway Proving Ground.  He puts Darcy Lewis out of his mind.

He can't be rid of her for long; when they come back from Utah with more files for JARVIS, Darcy is still there.  It turns out that she and Foster are now permanently stationed out of the Tower, though they often take trips to different locations for whatever kind of research it is that an astrophysicist does.  Fortunately for Steve's peace of mind, they're actually leaving - the day after he and Sam and Natasha get back to New York, Foster and Lewis fly out to Hawaii, to the Keck Observatory at the top of Mauna Kea.  Steve can't help but breathe a sigh of relief once she's gone.  She hasn't even approached him, but just the idea that she was there and interested made anxiety spike inside of him every time he caught her thoughtful eyes on him.

They spend the next month missing one another; when she's at the Tower, he's gone, and vice versa.  Steve largely forgets about her.

And then he catches up with Bucky just as he's in the process of turning a HYDRA base in New Mexico into a smoking crater.  "Buck," Steve calls out, his voice cracking. "Please."

"Go home, Steve," Bucky replies, refusing to look at him. "I'm not that guy any more."

"Yeah," Steve says, "well, maybe I'm not the guy you remember either, ever think of that?"

Bucky turns to look at him, confusion and disbelief on his face, and Steve, suddenly exhausted, puts his shield on his back and drops to the ground, leaning back against the tire of a now-disabled HYDRA truck.  He stares up at Bucky.  "I ain't right, you know?" he asks. "In the head, I mean. I spent seventy years frozen in ice, and everybody thinks I must have been asleep the whole time but I wasn't, Buck."

Bucky takes an involuntary step toward him. "Steve," he says softly.

Steve shakes his head, looking out at the ground, watching the steam rise as the underground complex burns.  "I remember the ice," he says. "I remember the water coming up around me.  I remember losing the feeling in my feet and I wasn't afraid because I thought _well, I'll see Bucky soon enough_.  But I didn't.  And now here we are, me and you, and maybe they didn't brainwash me but I damn sure worked for 'em, just as much as you did, Buck. And they told me I was saving the world, and I was keeping people safe, only now I look back and I wonder how many people I killed for HYDRA, and I think about how they must have laughed."

"I... I didn't want to kill those people," Bucky offers, coming a little closer.

Steve looks up at him, and he feels hollow when he says, "I know you didn't, Buck. But I did, so which of us is the monster?"

When Sam catches up with them, they're sitting there together, watching the earth crater and fall in.  "Well," Sam says as he lands. "This looks cozy.  All you two need are some marshmallows for roasting and maybe a bottle of hooch."

"Hey, that sounds like a great idea," Bucky says casually. "You oughta go get us some."

Sam gives him the finger.  Steve and Bucky just laugh.

They make their way back to the Tower a couple of days later, and Bucky spends a lot of time hiding out, still skittish about new people and strange places.  He will occasionally come out of the apartment and haunt the common areas if there aren't too many people around, and one by one he's meeting the other Avengers and their ancillaries and support staff, which relieves Steve because Bucky doesn't have to be quite so scared all the time in his own home.

Sometimes Bucky prowls the tower at night, because he has trouble sleeping, and sometimes Steve does the same thing for the same reason.

And so it happens that one particular night, Steve passes through the communal kitchen to discover Bucky sitting there on the counter, his back against the wall, sharing a container of Ben & Jerry's with Darcy Lewis.  They're talking softly; Steve hears their voices as he steps into the room, and his heart sinks when they both turn to look at him. He can't exactly duck out now - it would be rude, and Bucky might think he'd done something - so Steve sucks it up and walks over to where they're sitting. "Hey," he says, keeping his voice low to match the dimmed lights and the quiet atmosphere.

"Hey, Stevie," Bucky says, offering the ice cream to him.

Steve shakes his head.  Bucky shrugs and takes another bite.  "You know Darcy, right?  Works with Foster?"

"We haven't formally met," Steve says, giving Darcy a nod.

Darcy smiles. "No, but I know who you are," she says, and Steve braces himself as she reaches out and puts a hand on his arm. "I was actually kind of wanting to ask you something, if, um.  If you don't mind."

Steve takes a deep breath. "Look, Darcy," he says, "I'm flattered. Really, I am. But I'm not really interested in seeing anyone right now, and I - " He stops when Bucky makes an inhuman sound, looking back and forth between Darcy's bright red face and Bucky, who looks like he's about to lose his mind. "What?"

"The _ego_ on you, Rogers!" Bucky exclaims, and the laughter comes pouring out of him, harder than Steve's heard him laugh since before the war.  "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, if I never see such an ego!"

Steve feels himself flushing bright red, with a combination of embarrassment and anger. "What?!" he demands. "What the hell?!"

Darcy coughs delicately. "Well, I mean..." She swallows hard. "I don't... I don't want to hurt your feelings, Steve, because you're very attractive and all, and I'm sure there are tons of girls who are going to be interested in you..."

"She likes _Wilson_ _,_ you jackass," Bucky interrupts, his face split wide with a grin and his eyes sparkling.  "She wants you to introduce her."

"But..."  Steve's mind goes back to that night at the party, and the fact that Darcy had been staring at him.  Or had she?  She'd been far enough across the room, and he'd been standing right next to Sam - they had both just assumed she was staring at him, because that's what girls _did._   They stared at Steve because they were into him, and they wanted to sleep with him. 

But Darcy had been staring at Sam.

"Oh, my God," Steve whispers.  "I, uh. I think I need to sit down."

Darcy guides him to a chair at the kitchen table and brings him a glass of water with a sympathetic expression.  "I'm sorry," she says softly. "I hope I didn't hurt your feelings."

"No, I - " Steve shakes his head.  "It's my fault.  Sam caught you staring, that night at Stark's party a few months ago, and we both assumed you were staring at me."

Darcy nods. "I can see why you would. Bucky, stop laughing, now you're just being an asshole."

Bucky, still chortling, comes over and drops into the chair next to Steve, offering him the ice cream again.  Steve takes it this time, shoveling a spoonful of Rocky Road into his mouth.  He passes it to Darcy, who does the same, and hands it back to Bucky.

"So," Bucky says as he leans back in his chair, giving Steve that so-familiar smirk, "you gonna hook the girl up or not?"

~*~

Steve figures that the least he can do to redeem himself after being kind of an ass to Darcy is, as Bucky put it, hook her up with Sam.

And he figures the least he can do to get revenge on Sam for (however obliquely) causing him to make an ass of himself with Darcy is not tell Sam that's what's happening.

So he calls Sam and makes plans with him to go to Open Mic Night at that coffee shop Sam likes.  They had a reasonably good time last time, sitting in the back and making fun of the hipsters and that one goth kid, so Sam agrees, and Steve arranges to meet him there around eight-thirty. 

He and Bucky and Darcy get there at eight-twenty, snagging a table in the back and arranging it so that Sam, who arrives while they're all ordering their coffee, gets stuck in the corner next to Darcy.

Steve casually drapes one of his arms across the back of the chair Darcy is sitting in, and Sam grins broadly. He'd probably give Steve a thumbs up if Darcy wasn't sitting right there.  He's been encouraging Steve to put himself out there romantically - or at least socially - and he always likes to encourage what he sees as Steve developing healthy living habits.

Then Steve casually drapes his other arm across the back of the chair Bucky is sitting in, and Bucky shifts into him, just a little bit.  The expression of confusion that crosses Sam's face is so perfect. Steve has never wished this hard for a camera in his _life_.  

And then it gets better when Darcy leans into him, resting her hand on Sam's thigh while overtly angling to give him a good view down the front of her dress.  Sam all but _yelps_ , squirming backward. "Hey, whoa now!"

And then the flash of Bucky's camera phone goes off, and Steve _loses it_ , leaning against Bucky's shoulder and laughing like he's finally gone out of his freezer-burned mind. 

Sam points his finger at Steve, then shifts it to point at Bucky.  "You're assholes. Both of you. Star-spangled _jackasses_."

Bucky grins broadly. "That's what you get for tellin' this mook some girl's into him.  You have any idea how hard he's been avoiding her for the last few months?  And then when she finally cornered him, he's all _I don't wanna hurt your feelings but I ain't into you_ and she just stares at him like he's stupid - which he is - and says _well, I don't wanna hurt your feelings, but I ain't into you either_."

Sam blinks in surprise, looking back and forth between the two of them.  "But you were totally checking Steve out at the party!" he protests, sensing that he's being blamed for something.  "I saw you!"

Darcy laughs, and Sam hears his doom.  "You complete nerd," she tells him.  "I was checking _you_ out.  If you two hadn't made tracks so fast, I was working my courage up to come over and say hello."

Sam blinks, his eyes shifting back over to Steve. Then he looks back at Darcy.  And he grins, huge and bright. "Well, I apologize," he says. "I don't know what's gotten into me.  You know, I blame it on this idiot," he adds, gesturing to Steve. "I never used to make mistakes like that."

"Well, I can kind of understand. Anybody would feel less self-confident standing next to the perfectly-sculpted statue of Howard Stark's Ultimate American Beefcake," Darcy replies, grinning. "Fortunately for both of us, I was never much into beefcake."

There's a long pause, and then Sam reaches over and knocks Steve's hand off the back of Darcy's chair, replacing it with his own. Darcy grins broadly and shifts into Sam the same way Bucky shifted into Steve, and they all settle in to watch that one goth kid get up and read a poem that's half radical Marxist manifesto and half overdramatic suicide note. 

After that, there's no dealing with Darcy; she roams the tower with an unbearably smug expression on her face that does not go away even in the face of Tony Stark's mockery; in fact, it only gets worse, because when Tony starts, Darcy just cocks an eyebrow at him and asks how Pepper's doing.  Since Tony is completely stupid over Pepper and everyone knows it, his bluster shuts down immediately and he slinks away to his workshop where, he claims, at least the robots respect him (they don't). 

She remains smug all the way up until her first real date with Sam, at which point she becomes a nervous wreck for about four hours, until Natasha takes her in hand and helps her do her hair and pick out an outfit: a cute black skirt and a yellow top, not too dressy but definitely not casual.  Darcy pulls them on and stares at herself in the mirror for a long moment before taking a deep breath and blowing it out again.  Then she pulls on a pair of black tights and her favorite boots. She gives Nat a smile once she's dressed.  "Sorry about all this," she says.

"About what?"

"Oh, you know.  Being all nervous.  Coolness factor in the far negatives.  Failing the Bechdel test entirely because all I can seem to talk about is Sam."

Natasha laughs.  "You and Jane are going on another trip soon, yes?"

"God, yes, ugh." Darcy groans. "She's decided she just _has_ to talk to some physicist in Copenhagen.  It better be worth it; I _just_ got over the jet lag from the last trip."

"Sleep on the flight back," Natasha advises.  "And avoid caffeine for twelve hours before getting on the flight."

"That sounds miserable," Darcy opines.

"It is," Natasha replies. "But as we have now passed the Bechdel test, there is one less thing for you to worry about tonight."

Darcy's mouth drops open and she stares at Natasha in awe. "You're my she-ro, I want you to know that."

Natasha pats her on the head. "I already knew that, _kotyonok._ Now, stop being so nervous. You are an amazing, strong woman and you don't need his approval."

"Right," Darcy says, straightening her shoulders and taking a deep breath. "And also, I'm super fucking hot, and he's lucky to have me."

"Damn right," Natasha agrees. "Now get out of here before you're late."

Darcy grabs her purse and heads for the door.  She's not going far; she and Sam are actually meeting in the common room and leaving together. But she still doesn't want to be late.

She manages to be right on time, stepping into the room through one door just as Sam comes in through another. "Hey," she says, and Sam grins, coming straight over to her and leaning down to press a kiss to her cheek.

"Hey," he greets her.  "Damn, you look good."

"Thank you," Darcy replies, smiling brightly.  "So do you."  And he does: he's wearing a well-fitting pair of blue jeans and a red button-up shirt with the sleeves rolled up to show off those amazing forearms. 

He grins, straightening a little bit in that way that says _I know I look great but thanks for noticing._ "You ready to head out?"

"Absolutely," Darcy replies, catching his hand in hers and lacing their fingers together.  "Let's go.  Speaking of going, _where_ are we going?"

"A little bird told me you like barbecue," Sam says as they step into the elevator.  When Darcy's eyes light up and her smile starts to get wider, he grins. "It just so happens that I know a barbecue place up in Harlem that will knock your socks off."

"I'm going to take your word for it," Darcy tells him. "But you need to understand that I grew up in Memphis and I am extremely particular about barbecue."

"Did you, now?" Sam asks. "You know, I have some cousins in Memphis."

"What a crazy random happenstance." Darcy laughs as they step out of the elevator on the ground floor.  "Have you been down there recently?"

"I've actually never been down there at all," Sam replies.  "Maybe you'll have to take me sometime."

Darcy grins, tugging him across the tower lobby toward the escalator that leads down into Grand Central.  "Count on it."

When Darcy sees the sign over the door of the barbecue place, she gives Sam a skeptical look.  "Really?" she asks dryly. "Memphis barbecue. Really."

Sam grins, and she's charmed all over again by that gap in his teeth.  "Just trust me," he says, and he pulls open the door, resting his hand on her lower back as she passes him to enter the restaurant.

"I'm trusting you all the way through the first bite," Darcy says.

Sam laughs. "That's all I ask."

They order the "Giant Pig Platter" which, according to the menu, promises enough food to share plus leftovers.  Darcy maintains her skeptical air as they wait for the food, chatting idly about life with the Avengers.  And then the food comes, and Darcy sits up straight, examining the plate.  There are wet and dry ribs, pulled pork in sauce, fluffy rolls, two huge servings of baked beans, and two more of cole slaw.

She narrows her eyes at Sam.

He grins.

She reaches out, her hand hovering over the platter like a chess master's over the board, and she eyeballs the ribs, her hand shifting back and forth for a long moment.

"I prefer the sauce, myself," Sam offers in a low voice, "but then, I do love to get my mouth into a good, wet mess."

Darcy freezes, her eyes rising to meet his, and her mouth drops open. "Sam _Wilson_ ," she breathes. "That was _filthy._ "

He grins more.

She grins back.  "I like it."  And she plucks up a dry rib, lifting it to sniff delicately before taking a bite.

Sam watches intently.

The sound Darcy makes is not quite human.

Sam smirks. "The owner's from Memphis," he says, jerking his head toward the kitchen door.  "And so's the cook."

"I have never been so happy to get suckered in all my life," Darcy declares, going to town on the rib.  "This is _delicious._ "

Sam picks up one of the wet ribs and starts eating. "Told you," he offers.

"Yes, you did," Darcy replies, finishing the rib and picking up a fork.  She grabs one of the rolls and splits it open, piling pork onto it to make a sandwich. "I'm going to have sauce all down my shirt and ask me if I care." 

Sam laughs, watching her take a huge bite and narrowly miss making her prediction come true.  "Do you care?"

"Not even a little bit."

For a long few minutes, the only sounds at their table are eating sounds, because both of them deeply appreciate delicious food and neither one of them is ashamed of that fact. 

Someone drops a plate in the kitchen and it shatters; Darcy sends a wry glance in that direction. "Well, that sucks.  Hope it wasn't full."  She makes a face. "I waitressed my way through high school and my first year of college.  It's honestly one of the worst jobs I could ever imagine having."

"Food service workers and retail workers who _don't_ strangle a customer a day deserve a medal, if you ask me," Sam says.  He starts to say something else, and then he pauses, turning his head slightly. "Did you hear that?" Darcy frowns. "Sounded like another plate shattering, but... outside?"

Just then, Sam's phone goes off - it's his assemble alert.  He snatches it out of his pocket and checks the text message from JARVIS: it's some kind of massive rampaging robot (though apparently not a Doombot).  And it's in Harlem.  A couple of blocks away from his location.  Iron Man is inbound with his gear.

"Shit," he breathes.  "Darce, you got your phone on you, right?"

Darcy nods, holding it up.  Sam says, "Okay. It's some kind of robot, and it's close. Iron Man's on his way with my gear, but he won't be able to get you out.  I need you to stay here so I know where to find you afterward, okay?"

Darcy nods.  "But in the event that we get chased out, I'll keep my phone on me."  She pauses, then offers, "I also have a subcutaneous tracker, courtesy of Stark.  There... _may_ have been a kidnapping scare the first week we were here."

Sam nods.  "That's a good thing to have, as long as you trust Tony."

"I do, for now," Darcy replies.  "And if that changes, I know a guy who specializes in electricity that can short it out for me."  She grins.  "I think I hear Iron Man now; go assemble.  Be careful, okay?  This is really good barbecue and I'd hate for its memory to be marred by you getting stomped on or swatted or something."

Sam laughs.  "I'll be careful; I promise."  He stands up, pulls out his wallet, and hands the waitress a fifty as he heads for the door.  "I'll be back when this is over to pick you up," he tells Darcy, and when he steps out the door, he reaches out to take his wing pack from Iron Man.

The waitress leans over the side of the booth, watching him through the glass front of the restaurant.  "Is that Falcon?" she asks, frankly gaping as Sam straps his pack on.

"Yep," Darcy replies, watching the flex and play of his muscles.  She has _got_ to get him into bed, and soon.

Iron Man hands over another pack, from which Sam begins to withdraw weaponry, strapping guns to his waist and his legs until he's fairly bristling with firepower.  Darcy swallows hard.  On one hand, _damn_ is that hot.  But on the other hand, it really drives home (if she needed it driven) that when he takes off, he's going to be risking his life.

He turns back toward the window as he straps on his goggles and gives Darcy a salute; she returns it, and he launches himself into the air, followed immediately by Iron Man.

The waitress looks back over at Darcy. "So, you want some to-go boxes?"

Darcy looks down at the platter, which is barely half-touched. "Oh, yeah," she says. "I'm _definitely_ taking every bite of this home."

Somewhat anticlimactically, Sam is back in about half an hour, totally unscathed.  He grins as he lands in front of the restaurant and comes in to find Darcy still in the same booth, a plastic bag full of leftovers on the table beside an empty pie plate.  "Thanks for waiting," he says, as if he'd just been taking care of some mundane business.  "Oh, did you have the pecan pie? It's seriously amazing."

"It was really good," Darcy agrees.  "I got a couple pieces in the bag, if you wanna go back to the tower and heat them up."  She smirks. "Maybe I could debrief you at my place?"

Sam smirks. "That sounds fantastic."  He holds out his hand.  "C'mon, let's get outta here."

On the sidewalk, he takes her hand.  "How do you feel about flying?"

Darcy beams. "I love flying."

Sam grins at her, and oddly enough he looks kind of shy. "I, uh. I got a set of straps, if you'd like to take the short way home."

"It's almost like you're trying to impress me or something," Darcy says, laughing.  "Okay, Sundown, show me what you got."

Sam laughs as he pulls the straps out and steps up behind Darcy to strap their bodies together. "Pulling out the _Top Gun_ references, even.  And how the hell do you remember that the black dude's name was Sundown?  Most people go for Maverick or Iceman."

Darcy laughs. "That _may_ have been my favorite movie for several years of my childhood," she explains.  "I wanted to be a fighter pilot for years until someone told me I couldn't be, with glasses."  She shrugs, shifting as he tells her to and then relaxing into his arms, gripping the bag of food tightly in her hands.

"Okay," he says. "Couple of rules.  Don't panic. Don't grab at me.  If you drop the food, let it go; I can bring you back."

Darcy laughs.  "Got it.  C'mon, Falcon, let's hit the skies."

Sam brushes her hair to the side and leans down, pressing a soft kiss to the side of her neck that makes her shiver.  "Okay," he tells her softly.  "Here we go."

Behind her, she hears the repulsors on his pack fire up.  His arms tighten around her, holding her close against him.  And then the earth disappears from under her feet, and they're soaring through the air, and Darcy's flying.


End file.
